DVM's Rabid Rodent BYOC Mouse v.2 Proco Rat Clone review

[piebaldpython***]

Hey! Thought I would post something of a progress report, seeing as I am “rebuilding” my pedal board. I still have this as one of my very top dirt boxes. Though over the years, I had gotten kinda stuck in my settings.

I had added a Catalinbread Formula No. 5, and then a more versatile Formula No. 55 (with more tonal range) which is one of their foundation pedals, and is designed to recreate the 5E3 Preamp circuit of old tweed amps. I have come to love that pedal, and now am finding ways to use those pedals in combination with this pedal, kinda setting up the Catalinbread to be the base tone, and then stacking the Rodent closer to the guitar than the amp to feed the C-bread. Works great that way! And still on its own.

One of my favorite pedals ever!

Hey SVL........long time no talk buddy. Nice to see you around.

I have the Catalinbread Form No 5 pedal and I use it with my Rabid Rodent too. The Catalinbread starts to get you into that jangly Ry Cooder-ish sound and their SFT foundation pedal gets you into Stones territory. That said, bearfootfx.com makes some superb foundation pedals.....they really nail the flavor of the old Tweed, Gibson, Silverface/Silvertone amps.

The RR is a pedal that was ahead of it's time with it's 6 different OD/Distortion settings. There are some high-end pedal makers, like Walrus Audio, that are now making a pedal with similar voiceings.

[sunvalleylaw]

Hey SVL........long time no talk buddy. Nice to see you around.

I have the Catalinbread Form No 5 pedal and I use it with my Rabid Rodent too. The Catalinbread starts to get you into that jangly Ry Cooder-ish sound and their SFT foundation pedal gets you into Stones territory. That said, bearfootfx.com makes some superb foundation pedals.....they really nail the flavor of the old Tweed, Gibson, Silverface/Silvertone amps.

The RR is a pedal that was ahead of it's time with it's 6 different OD/Distortion settings. There are some high-end pedal makers, like Walrus Audio, that are now making a pedal with similar voiceings.

Hey, PBP!! Nice to see you! I replied to your other post first, so did not see this and that you also have a F5. I love those little Howard Gee boxes, don’t you? I probably don’t need to have both the F5, AND a F55, even though I have two boards. So maybe I do, as I use them so much. As you know, but maybe others don’t, the F5 was intended to mimic the tweed 5E3 preamp circuit, and is very controllable and has a lot of nice touch that can be controlled with the volume knob, clean to dirty. Howard has a nice video featuring a SG guitar where he goes from jazz comping to rocking out, back and forth. That was what sold me on it. And as you likely also know, the F55 was the complete re-do after some parts became impractical or unavailable to keep making the F5. So the F55 is intended to do the same thing, but with more range, and the range can change from a “cleaner” set of tubes (green LED setting) to a hotter set of tubes (RED LED setting). At first, I found it easier to find what I wanted in the F5, and it is a great box. But now I have found how to get what I was liking out of the F5 out of the F55. I may switch the two of them back and forth between my two main tube amps, and continue to play with it, but I think I like this arrangement right now.

And both play nicely with the RR, which now is serving as distortion flavor on top of the foundation of the C-bread pedals. I still get addicted to that Red LED setting, and the first, most ‘stock” rat setting. Like going from RAT to Turbo-RAT as between them. And as said, stacks really nicely with the C-bread getting the amp in a good place to carry that additional distortion flavor.

I have not in a long time played with the last 3 settings on the RR, but will go back to that and explore more there as well, and maybe turn the C-bread off when doing that. I used to feel like I could get a nice Mayer tone using position 5 I think. But again, haven’t tried for that in years.

Glad to be back playing more and with a much more experimental mindset with regard to these tools I have at my disposal.

I am looking at getting a good ABY box too, to set up a Wet/Dry situation, which I think would be really fun. I just finished watching the episode on YouTube of That Pedal Show that goes over that. Seeing as I will be staying at home, and not going out for dinners or a night at the pub for too expensive beers in a nice environment this winter, I figure I may as well get the few additional tools I need to really explore these little boxes and bigger boxes with tubes in them. And a little SS box (Quilter Interblock 45) I can use easily for online playing/recording. As I posted elsewhere, I hope to build some remote social with people while we ride this pandemic thing out.

[sunvalleylaw]

Hey SVL........long time no talk buddy. Nice to see you around.

I have the Catalinbread Form No 5 pedal and I use it with my Rabid Rodent too. The Catalinbread starts to get you into that jangly Ry Cooder-ish sound and their SFT foundation pedal gets you into Stones territory. That said, bearfootfx.com makes some superb foundation pedals.....they really nail the flavor of the old Tweed, Gibson, Silverface/Silvertone amps.

The RR is a pedal that was ahead of it's time with it's 6 different OD/Distortion settings. There are some high-end pedal makers, like Walrus Audio, that are now making a pedal with similar voiceings.

Hey, PBP!! Nice to see you! I replied to your other post first, so did not see this and that you also have a F5. I love those little Howard Gee boxes, don’t you? I probably don’t need to have both the F5, AND a F55, even though I have two boards. So maybe I do, as I use them so much. As you know, but maybe others don’t, the F5 was intended to mimic the tweed 5E3 preamp circuit, and is very controllable and has a lot of nice touch that can be controlled with the volume knob, clean to dirty. Howard has a nice video featuring a SG guitar where he goes from jazz comping to rocking out, back and forth. That was what sold me on it. And as you likely also know, the F55 was the complete re-do after some parts became impractical or unavailable to keep making the F5. So the F55 is intended to do the same thing, but with more range, and the range can change from a “cleaner” set of tubes (green LED setting) to a hotter set of tubes (RED LED setting). At first, I found it easier to find what I wanted in the F5, and it is a great box. But now I have found how to get what I was liking out of the F5 out of the F55. I may switch the two of them back and forth between my two main tube amps, and continue to play with it, but I think I like this arrangement right now.

And both play nicely with the RR, which now is serving as distortion flavor on top of the foundation of the C-bread pedals. I still get addicted to that Red LED setting, and the first, most ‘stock” rat setting. Like going from RAT to Turbo-RAT as between them. And as said, stacks really nicely with the C-bread getting the amp in a good place to carry that additional distortion flavor.

I have not in a long time played with the last 3 settings on the RR, but will go back to that and explore more there as well, and maybe turn the C-bread off when doing that. I used to feel like I could get a nice Mayer tone using position 5 I think. But again, haven’t tried for that in years.

Glad to be back playing more and with a much more experimental mindset with regard to these tools I have at my disposal.

I am looking at getting a good ABY box too, to set up a Wet/Dry situation, which I think would be really fun. I just finished watching the episode on YouTube of That Pedal Show that goes over that. Seeing as I will be staying at home, and not going out for dinners or a night at the pub for too expensive beers in a nice environment this winter, I figure I may as well get the few additional tools I need to really explore these little boxes and bigger boxes with tubes in them. And a little SS box (Quilter Interblock 45) I can use easily for online playing/recording. As I posted elsewhere, I hope to build some remote social with people while we ride this pandemic thing out.